


Working Up To Something

by coraxes



Series: Repair [1]
Category: Castlevania (Cartoon)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Multi, Polyamory Negotiations, Pregnancy, not talking about your feelings and then talking about them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-14 19:33:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19279723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coraxes/pseuds/coraxes
Summary: Trevor's used to not thinking about anything important, thanks. But he's managed to knock up the woman he loves (though she's probably not staying that way for long--who'd want to have his kid, let's be honest) and neither of them can stop talking about another man.There's only so much thinking he can avoid. This was easier when he stayed drunk.





	Working Up To Something

**Author's Note:**

> this is a prequel to _Repair_ and probably doesn't make much sense if you haven't read that! while alucard is sir-not-appearing-in-this-fic, this does contain discussion of polyamory so i think it merits the ot3 tag. that said, this focuses more on trevor/sypha. i've wanted to write a series-within-a-series of three oneshots that focus on "date nights" between each leg of this love triangle, so this is the first of those.
> 
> heads-up that there is some discussion/fears of maternal and infant mortality, though nothing serious actually happens.
> 
> fic title is from "fucking boyfriend" by the bird and the bee.

Veros was a small enough town to escape Dracula’s notice during that hellish year. Consequently it was now one of the largest cities in Wallachia. Since word got out that the demon hordes never breached the city’s walls, people decided it was uniquely safe; even now that the danger had passed, few wanted to brave the ruins of Targoviste and Gresit and the rest. Compared to the last time Trevor had seen it Veros seemed to have swollen. Outside its gates sat shacks and tents and wagons and market stalls. Stray children, chickens, and cats ran across the road, so the closer they drove the more Sypha had to yank on the reins and swear under her breath.

A town this size would definitely have an apothecary. Trevor could hear Alucard now: _ah yes, a shop for colored liquor and weeds._ Well, screw imaginary Alucard. He and Sypha didn’t have time to trek the weeks to Alucard’s castle, and anyway some apothecaries knew what they were doing.

Plus he happened to want some liquor. The color made it fun.

Sypha jerked forward, big eyes narrowing. “Look!”

“Goat!” snapped Trevor, and lunged for the reins.

Sypha elbowed him out of the way—unpleasant, she was very bony—and kept them from dying a grisly goat-related death. Then she finished, “Those are Speaker wagons. Let’s go! Ooh, I bet they have a market, I wonder if they’ve been out of Wallachia recently…”

When Trevor was little one of their hunting dogs had puppies. He’d spent a lot of time outdoors as a kid, anything to get out of that gloomy old manor, so of course he played with them as they grew. Trevor could follow those things around for hours, over hay bales and into wagons and through the woods; but he always got tired before they did. So he’d plop down in the middle of the forest and wait for them to circle back, whining at the loss of their playmate.

Sypha felt like that, sometimes. Only she was big enough to drag him along.

“Sure, why not,” Trevor said, though she hadn’t really asked his opinion, and Sypha beamed at him so of course he had to smile back.

They parked the cart in the stable just outside the city walls and both hopped down. Trevor’s hand found Sypha’s when they rejoined, and he paused, looking down at the point of contact.

“What?” Sypha asked.

Trevor smiled sheepishly and squeezed her fingers. “Wasn’t sure it was still allowed, what with the…”

She shrugged. “I’m already pregnant. It can’t get worse.”

“’S what Mary said when she had Jesus. Look what happened there.”

Sypha rolled her eyes and tugged him along into the market. The Speaker wagons were well off the road, probably not allowed to get a better place, but the bright cloth overhanging their market stalls stood out in a sea of browns and greys and dark greens.

Another stall caught Trevor’s eye before they’d gone very far. “Hey, I’ll meet you over there, alright?” Sypha turned back, questioning, and Trevor jerked his head towards another stall full of riding equipment. “Gotta take a look.”

“Don’t start any fights,” Sypha said, only half-joking, and left him to his shopping. Trevor watched her disappear into the crowd. He always worried about her, a Speaker woman off on her own, even though he knew she could set the whole place on fire if she wanted to.

Then he set off to the stall he’d seen before. For weeks now he and Sypha had been fantasizing about fresh fruit. A farmer’s wife was selling preserves; not quite the same, but better than what they’d been doing all winter, living off whatever they could hunt or scavenge off the road. Trevor haggled over a jar of lemon preserves and ended up with a smaller pot of raspberry jam to boot. He stuffed both in his pockets and went to join Sypha.

At the edge of the Speaker wagons, guarding the corridor between them, was a big wolfdog with greyish white fur. As Trevor approached, scanning the crowd for Sypha, it took notice of him and sat up. There were plenty of Speakers, a few shoppers, but he didn’t see her. That wasn’t unusual. She was so short that it was easy to lose her in the crowd. He offered his hand to the dog and, as it didn’t bite the hand off, Trevor dared to scratch behind its ears.

The shaggy coat and the great yellow eyes reminded him of Alucard’s wolf form, although Alucard had been much less smelly. “Much less cuddly, too,” Trevor muttered. Though he’d been less standoffish the last few times they had visited. When Trevor had been sick Alucard had gotten positively handsy, yanking his shirt off and all; Trevor wasn’t sure what he’d said at the time but it had probably been stupid.

“He doesn’t take bribes.”

Some hunter Trevor was. He didn’t notice the Speaker until she was right beside him. And there was a toddler on her hip, too, so she couldn’t have been very stealthy. They both had matching heads of curly dark hair, and the baby’s eyes seemed almost as suspicious as their mothers’.

“No bribes. He just seemed friendly,” Trevor said with a weak smile. The Speaker raised an unimpressed eyebrow, but thankfully Sypha chose that moment step out from behind one of the wagons. Trevor waved, catching her attention over the crowd; the dog, deprived of its pets, butted at Trevor’s leg.

“I found something for you,” Sypha said, hands behind her back, at the same time Trevor said, “Got you something.” Sypha geared up to argue so he continued quickly, “I’m going first, yours is probably better.” Better to be outdone than just fail to measure up, right? He presented the preserves and jam and watched Sypha’s face light up as she thought of the possibilities. Preserves on toast, in porridge, in tea…actually that was about all the possibilities.

“Thank you,” she said, blushing a little, and then reached for his shirt. He almost objected but saw the broach in her hands, a small iridescent shell in a gold setting. Sypha stuck it on his collar. “Here’s yours. It will hold an enchantment, once I think of one.”

“I was right. This is better,” Trevor said, and absentmindedly kissed the top of her head.

“Friend of yours, Sypha?” asked the woman with the baby.

Sypha startled, as if she hadn’t realized Trevor had company. He wasn’t the friendly one of their merry band. “Oh! Trevor, this is Ilinca. She was in my grandfather’s band before she joined this one. Ilinca, this is Trevor Belmont.”

Ilinca raised one sharp eyebrow while the toddler twined a sticky fist around a lock of her hair. “Belmont?”

Years of being the last fucking Belmont in existence and he still hadn’t gotten used to clarifying. Or maybe he just didn’t like it. Trevor scratched at his stubble. “That’s me,” he said, instead of his usual spiel, and let the air get heavy for a moment before Sypha broke it.

“This dog looks like Alucard,” she declared, bending down to better scratch under its jaw.

“Doesn’t he?” The dog’s tail thumped along the ground, more expression than wolf-Alucard had ever expressed around them; would shapeshifting into a wolf make Alucard express himself like one as well? Trevor didn’t really know much about shapeshifters, except how to kill them. “You think Alucard would get along with other dogs?”

Sypha grinned, probably at the mental image of a dog trying to sniff Alucard’s arse. At least that was what Trevor was thinking. “Bet they’re too dirty for him.”

“You have a dog named after Dracula’s son?” Ilinca asked, detangling the baby’s hand from her hair.

“No, Alucard’s a friend.” Ilinca looked like she didn’t know whether to believe them or not, and Sypha continued on as if she didn’t care either way. “We helped him kill Dracula last summer.”

Trevor nodded and offered a finger for Ilinca’s baby to chew on. They had several menacing little chompers, but Trevor had seen worse. “He turns into a wolf sometimes.”

Ilinca’s eyebrow climbed higher and a second joined its ascent. “Alucard is a _werewolf_?”

“He shapeshifts,” Sypha said, and stood, brushing the dirt off her knees. “How old is your baby?”

Taking the subject change with what looked like no small amount of relief, Ilinca said, “A year and a half. Careful, they’re a magician—set my hair on fire yesterday when I wouldn’t let them chew on it.”

Trevor grinned. Had Sypha done that when she was little? Speaker-magicians were rare, but he couldn’t help but think her child would have to be one. A tiny thing with giant blue eyes, or maybe brown like the rest of Trevor’s family, leaving frost all over its blankets—shit, shit, no, he didn’t need to be thinking about that.

“Your Belmont can hold them, if he wants,” Ilinca offered. “I bet he could use the practice.”

At this affront to his skill Trevor had to protest. “Please, I had four little siblings.” No need to mention what had happened to them. He reached out for the child, gently detangling them from their mother’s grasp, and settled them against his chest. The motions were a little awkward, but one hand on the butt, one hand on the back, and the baby was old enough to do the rest themselves.

“Bababababa,” said the baby, and pounded their fist on Trevor’s chest. Trevor couldn’t tell if this was excited or reproachful.

“See?” he said, grinning first at Ilinca and then at Sypha.

But Sypha just stared at him, expression open and soft and almost _sad_ somehow the way Sypha rarely was. Trevor caught on that, grin fading.

And then the baby set fire to his shirt.

“Shit shit _fuck._ ” Trevor blew furiously on the little tongue of flame before it could spread.

“Fa!” said the baby, spit flying everywhere.

“Warned you,” Ilinca sing-songed, stretching out her arms, and Trevor handed the baby back. Goddammit. He’d _just_ got caught up on patching and darning last night.

* * *

They wandered around market stalls for the next few hours, haggling for food and supplies and collecting news. Around dinnertime Sypha looped around again to the Speaker market to join the band’s meal.

Sypha wandered off to talk with a few older people tending to the food, so Trevor drifted to Ilinca ( _sans_ toddler; he wasn’t sure if that was a relief or not) as she was the only person he’d met. The Speakers didn’t seem to bear him any ill will, but they were definitely standoffish; he couldn’t forget that he wasn’t one, no matter who he’d arrived with. Ilinca tipped her mug of beer at him in greeting so Trevor figured it was safe to stand next to her while he ate a dumpling.

“Can I ask you something?” he asked. Ilinca shrugged. “Did it hurt? Having the baby, I mean.”

He’d never been allowed to see his brothers and sisters being born. Vaguely Trevor remembered going down that wing of the house on the day his next-younger sister showed up; he must have been three or four, and there had been so much screaming and crying coming from the room that he’d kicked up a fuss himself. After that he’d been banned from the wing entirely once his mother started her lying-in.

Ilinca actually laughed out loud. “More than anything in the fucking world. The midwife said they were too small. Easy for her to say—she didn’t have to push the little monster out her—anyway.” She shrugged again and took a gulp of beer.

Trevor smirked. Across the camp Sypha spoke animatedly to an old woman. From the explosive motion of her hands Trevor suspected she was bragging. “Were you afraid?” he asked, surprising himself, and then scowled. “Not my business. Forget I asked.”

But Ilinca didn’t brush him off. Her head tilted; for a moment she reminded him of Alucard as she studied him. “Yeah, I was. Still am. They were born into Dracula’s war; it seemed like a bad omen.”

Bringing a kid into that. Shitting Christ.

“She’ll be fine,” Ilinca added, and rested her hand on Trevor’s shoulder. “She’s strong.”

He managed an awkward smile and didn’t slap her hand away. (See, Sypha? He could learn.) “Didn’t think she’d talk about it.”

“She didn’t. I heard her asking our herbalist about the best treatments for morning sickness.” She tipped her beer at him again and smiled. “Congratulations.”

Morning sickness? Not ending it?

Trevor tried to smile back like his own stomach wasn’t lurching. “Thanks.”

* * *

Once dinner was over, the Speakers stoked the fire and settled in to hear and repeat old legends. Trevor had heard Sypha go on about this often enough that he expected to stay there for another few hours. Instead, Sypha marched up to him and tugged on the fur collar of his cloak. “Come here,” she said, fierce and otherworldly in the flickering light, so Trevor really had no choice but to follow as she dragged him past the line of wagons. They attracted a few knowing glances and chuckles on the way but somehow he doubted she had anything fun in mind. Sypha led him out of the circle of light and into a sparse cluster of trees where they at least had the illusion of privacy. “Listen, do you want this baby?”

“I—” Trevor’s heart had stopped beating. That was bad, right? Maybe they should worry about that instead. “I mean—”

Sypha charged on. “Because I do. But I’m not raising a child by myself, I can’t do that and be an adventurer at the same time. So if you really can’t do this, then fine. But if you’re in—if we’re a team—”

Earlier on the road they’d driven past a little grave marker, too far away for him to see the letters, but he could guess. The Belmont family plot had its share of small headstones over smaller graves. _Here Lies Infant Belmont,_ born and died too quickly to get a name. Of course, Sypha might want an Infant Belnades. She hadn’t really said; he’d been too scared to ask.

God, he wanted this baby, he wanted a family again more than anything he’d ever wanted in his _life._ And ever since Sypha had told him he’d just been hoping she’d hurry up and get to the apothecary and take care of it, because if she had this baby—if they had this baby—Trevor would never stop fucking worrying he’d lose them.

“Yes,” he said, like she’d punched it out of him. “And I’m fucking—Sypha, I’m terrified.” He had to lean against the tree and crossed his arms, like it would keep anything else from spilling out.

Sypha scowled and gently slapped his arm. “There you are,” she said, voice a mixture of frustrated and relieved. “I’m scared too, you know? But I’m keeping the baby. We’re doing this.”

“Oh,” said Trevor, and burst into tears. Sypha _laughed_ at him, the asshole, a surprised giggle that she quickly stifled, and Trevor shoved his hands over his face. “Shut up, you’re so annoying.” She wrapped her arms around his waist, and he very gently settled his elbows on her head.

“I love you,” she said into his shirt, and Trevor sniffed. “You need to _talk_ to me, Trevor. I’ve been worried and you just shut yourself off.”

Trevor wanted to argue with that but he couldn’t, really. He just wiped his eyes off on his sleeve. The tears were slowing down already, thank God. Crying gave him headaches. “Love you too.” He should probably ask what they were going to do next, but they’d already made enough big decisions for one night. If they decided to get married they could do it later. “Fuck. Us as parents…Alucard’ll never let us hear the end of it.”

Sypha reared back and gave him a dirty look. “We’ll be great parents!” she said, stabbing her finger into his chest, but after a moment she smirked. “Can you imagine Alucard with a baby?”

“Eating one, sure.”

“You’re horrible,” she said, but let him return her embrace. “I’d bet he’d be a good father. He’s so fussy.”

In his best pompous voice Trevor said, “‘My father forgot more about raising children than humanity has ever known!’”

A smile flickered across Sypha's face, and she sighed. “I miss him.”

They were overdue for a visit. Demon-hunting had taken them all over the country—far away from Dracula’s castle. “Me, too.” Trevor wondered if Alucard ever got lonely in there, if he ever wandered off to the nearby village; surely he wasn’t completely alone without the two of them. He leaned back against the tree and closed his eyes. “Don’t fucking tell him I told you that.”

* * *

The next morning, Sypha swung back into the wagon and tucked a sachet of herbs into her skirts. “This should with the morning sickness,” she said as Trevor fiddled with the reins. “If not, Grandfather will have something when I see him again.”

Alucard might have something, Trevor thought, and his hands tightened on the reins.

Sypha knocked her shoulder into his. “What’s got you brooding this morning?”

“I’m not—” he began, but thought the better of it. “We should go back to Dracula’s castle. With the baby, I mean. Or maybe before.”

Nodding, Sypha stretched out in her seat. It didn’t surprise Trevor that she was pleased; she’d been away from Alucard for a few months longer than he had. He waited for any surge of jealousy at the thought but it didn’t come. “That would be good. He seemed lonely last time, I think.”

“Yeah.” Trevor blew out a long breath. He didn’t look at Sypha but felt her eyes on him, waiting for him to go on. “And I, ah. Don’t make me say it.”

Usually Sypha just bullied him into telling her what he was feeling. In this, at least, she took pity. “It doesn’t feel right, does it, to start a family without him?”

Thank God. Trevor didn’t really have the words for this. Unless the words were “French court,” but that wasn’t quite right either. It wasn’t like he was planning on convincing Alucard to be his side piece. That actually might be easier if he ignored the risk of Sypha freezing his dick off.

Sypha’s hand settled on his knee, and no ice advanced toward his dick, so there was that. “We should go back to the castle and stay for a while, I think.”

He darted a glance at her, and saw she was pink. “See how it goes with all three of us,” he said, and Sypha nodded. Trevor flexed his fingers. “Alright, then. Should be fun.”

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos are <3.


End file.
